


Danse Macabre

by cutthroatfics



Series: World Building Wakanda: A Wakandan World Building series [4]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Ballroom Dancing, Hades Persephone prompt, M/M, Mythology References, tiny bit of a creation myth in there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 03:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15654978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutthroatfics/pseuds/cutthroatfics
Summary: T'Challa, the god of the wealth beneath the world, allows N'Jadaka, the god of sunshine and the ripeness of the Earth, leave the beauty of their kingdom to bring life to the world.Every year it gets harder to let him go but they are forces of nature and they must honor the duties they serve to nature.But that does not mean T'Challa won't try to bend the rules to get his husband to stay with him.It's a non traditional Hades/Persephone AU.





	Danse Macabre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ben_jaded](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ben_jaded/gifts), [quixotesque](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixotesque/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta Rei, who I credited as a co-creater. This fic would not be the same. without your help so, tough luck, you helped me make it.
> 
> To the wonderful Mimi, who listened to this idea bloom. My best wishes, my dear friend. 
> 
> T'Challa is a chthonic deity, a primordial god of the Underworld born before the current gods, and N'Jadaka is a god who was born after him in the current pantheon.
> 
> This was a bit of a break fic for me as I have done literal months of research and work for this pairing. I have my own Wakanda Bible now. Anyone waiting on TNUOF you're in for a great surprise later this month.
> 
> This is inspired, of course, by Danse Macabre, one of my favorite jazz tunes, Orange Colored Sky, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Consider listening while reading for an enhanced experience. 
> 
> Danse Macabre is roughly about dancing with death and it always makes me think of one of my favorite lines: "Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" But T'Challa isn't the devil here and you should think of him in more of an Addams Family light than a Beetlejuice one.

Every year the god of sunshine and the ripeness of the Earth would travel through the Panther's Mouth into the Underworld. 

 

Flowers bloomed from N’Jadaka’s sure steps; stems of marigold and silver that blossomed in darkness as the noise of drums filled his ears. 

 

The kingdom of Necropolis always welcomed him with song, the spirits of the dead greeting him with joyous melodies from ages unremembered. They sang for him from their homes of shining crystal and from streets of obsidian and bismuth. They threw petals of lavender, buttercup and white at his feet as he walked towards the palace where the Lord of the Dead lived -- where his husband lived. 

 

And when N’Jadaka would inevitably have to leave, the denizens of the Underworld played somber waltzes and veiled themselves so that he would not see their sadness and feel compelled to value the dead over the living. 

 

N'Jadaka's duty was to the Earth and her people, and his honor pulled him from his lover and the beauty of the kingdom they shared. Without him, the Earth would shrivel and starve. It was only N'Jadaka's reluctance for the Earth to join the Underworld before its time that persuaded T'Challa to let him leave. 

 

But that didn't mean T'Challa made no attempts to make him stay.

 

Necropolis was a lonely place. For eons before humanity’s birth, T’Challa had carved out the cave that was his womb under the light of his mother, the moon. It was a place both divine and natural, infused as it was with his power. Cities and statues had been chiseled out of stone and wherever he stepped, jewels welled out of the Earth as happy as flowers in the sun to see him. 

 

He built and built and built and when the time of man came, they found the proof of his steps and called these sanctuaries mines and sought to sully them with greed. They fought over the glittering rocks and when he saw, T’Challa brought the caves down upon the covetous and left their souls with the jewels so that they could see that the stones were just that: stones that they could not eat or drink and that they had foolishly killed for.

 

While T'Challa built his shimmering, subterranean cities, the gods above continued without thinking often of him. They spoke of him in passing, as if he were an eccentric brother with a strange hobby, until one day, a curious god of the Earth had wandered down to see T’Challa for himself.

 

T'Challa had engaged him in conversation, this god who was called N’Jadaka and who shined like the sun when he smiled, but the conversation quickly turned into a debate and then into an argument. He had angered N’Jadaka and commanded him to leave and N’Jadaka had left, only to return the next day, following T'Challa down into the Underworld, marveling at his kingdom, before starting up the same debate that had enraged him as if their clashes pleased N’Jadaka. 

 

 _They did please me,_ N’Jadaka confessed on their wedding day, smirking mischievously.  

 

But though they were married, though T'Challa wanted to keep him, it was impossible. N’Jadaka could only stay with him for brief moments. 

 

 _I’m a god of the living_ , N’Jadaka said, _a force of nature and without me, the world would die._

 

 _I am also a force of nature_ , T'Challa reminded him, _and all things die._  

 

Still, every year, he let his love leave to fulfill his duty and every year, it became harder and harder.

 

 _Show me_ , T'Challa said this year, when N’Jadaka appeared before him. _Show me this world you love so much._

 

 _What?_ N’Jadaka asked as T'Challa stepped around the indolent panthers that laid at the mouth of the Underworld. _What you mean?_

 

In that moment, drums rose out of the Earth, piles of bones hovering behind each drum. N'Jadaka smirked as the bones rattled in an effort to join together before, with a lazy gesture of his hand, vines crept through them. They acted as flesh and sinew, and soon the newly formed bodies sat as violins, violas, cellos, trumpets and trombones, filling the clearing until there was a full orchestra.

 

N'Jadaka laughed. _How long you been planning this one?_

_Long enough_ , T'Challa said as he stretched his hand out to him. _Dance with me?_

 

N'Jadaka looked around the meadow at the skeleton orchestra, then at T'Challa whose dark skin glowed blue under the moon's loving light. He shrugged, placing his calloused hand in T'Challa's, allowing himself to be pulled close. The undead musicians around them picked up their instruments and the plucking of a harp set the tempo as T'Challa and N'Jadaka adjusted their footing and night-blooming petals of white opened like a child stretching their arms after a nap. In the wake of T'Challa's steps, chips of diamond sprang forth as marigold as any of N'Jadaka's flowers.

 

T'Challa led them slowly around the clearing in the familiar steps of a waltz. The melody of the violins swelled and he took N'Jadaka up in his arms as if he weighed nothing, spinning him around, earning himself first a half-hearted frown and then a panicked laugh as T'Challa stepped over the edge of Mount Bashenga and the entrance to his kingdom, setting N'Jadaka down vertically on the side of the mountain.

 

N’Jadaka laughed again, openly delighted this time. The music continued to soar and followed them in their dance along the meadows of grasses and saplings taking root on the barren mountain top. It took them no time at all to reach the bottom of the mountain, the tempo speeding even further, T'Challa's feet moving even faster. They danced across the continent, the life-giving rains of a monsoon cracking the sky open in deference to N’Jadaka’s presence.

 

 _Above or below, my love?_ T'Challa asked. 

 

N'Jadaka looked at him in confusion, but quickly understood as T'Challa led him through the waves of a beach and plunged them both underwater. 

 

 _I see you have no preference then_ , T'Challa said, dry. Their bodies drank in water as easily as air. T’Challa’s footsteps welled up opals. Glistening shells unveiled their hearts of pearl.

 

N'Jadaka eased into a dip when T'Challa gracefully lowered him and he darted forward to kiss T’Challa as a coral reef came to life around them. The song of the spirits was just as close and clear as it had been when they were above ground and tirelessly, T’Challa and N’Jadaka continued their dance until they splashed out of the waves onto a new dark continent, where the sun had not yet risen. 

 

N'Jadaka shook his head. _I know what you're doing._

 

 _What am I doing?_ T'Challa asked as winter disappeared around them.

 

 _If we dance forever and the sun never rises on the new day, I'll be yours all year_.

 

T'Challa sighed, nodding in confession. _Spring will still happen, but I will have you with me._

 

N'Jadaka laid his head on T'Challa's chest. _And who’s gonna run your kingdom in your absence_?

 

T'Challa didn't speak, but he didn't slow the pace, either.

 

 _Spring can’t be rushed,_ N'Jadaka said with a kiss to T’Challa’s neck. _The plants can't be forced into being too early. It will hurt them just as much as if they never bloom. I have a duty to the people of this Earth, T'Challa_.

 

 _I’m sorry._ T'Challa slowed down finally as they reached a cave. _I merely wanted to spend one more day with you. You are the only light in my world, N'Jadaka._

 

 _I know how you feel,_ N'Jadaka said. The music that had accompanied them quietened into nothingness. _I always come home, don’t I?_

 

 _Home_? T'Challa whispered and he looked at N'Jadaka intently.

The longer he stared, the more N'Jadaka squirmed. Their lives were entwined, but it was alien for a god to truly leave their home. As much as they loved each other, N'Jadaka was a god of the Land Above just as much as T'Challa was a god of the Land Below. It was true N'Jadaka came back to him, but he spent more time away from Necropolis and T'Challa than he did with him. 

 

He kissed him again and leaned back to rove his inquisitive eyes over his golden god. 

 

N'Jadaka flushed and snapped. _What_?

 

 _Nothing_. T'Challa took N’Jadaka’s lips in another kiss sweeter than what one would expect from a God of the Dead. _Until we meet again, loneliness will be my shroud and I shall count the days until the Earth dies and you come to me._

Laughter bubbled up out of N’Jadaka. _Get yo dramatic ass back in the ground,_ he said as the sun rose behind him. 

 

The blooming dawn illuminated N’Jadaka’s bare feet, a flower bed sprouting around them. His indigo robe -- one of T’Challa’s -- gleamed brighter now than it ever did in Necropolis, the gossamer midnight silk of the robe woven in patterns only known to those who were eternal. Open at the front, it allowed T’Challa to appreciate the sun's light over N’Jadaka’s bronzed torso and the promise of his loose trousers. 

 

 _It’s beautiful_ , T'Challa breathed, when he finally looked beyond N’Jadaka’s shoulder. The oranges, reds, gold, purples and yellows were colors he had never seen. He had been born before the sun had ever risen on this world; until now, N'Jadaka had been the only light he’d known, but the tapestry of shifting colors he was seeing presently was almost as awe-inspiring as his mate. 

 

It left T’Challa humbled by the majesty of N'Jadaka's world, a world in which he could not linger in, for he had his own duty and his own people. They had made a pact, he and N’Jadaka, and ultimately T’Challa’s honor would not let him dishonor N'Jadaka by having him break it, not even for him. 

 

Under the glow of this new light, he kissed N’Jadaka deeply, grasping his waist and cradling his face. He wanted to bask in N’Jadaka’s golden warmth one last time before they parted.

 

 _You are the light of my world_ , T’Challa sighed again. 

 

Despite his earlier words, N'Jadaka reached hastily for T’Challa’s hands, not letting go even as T’Challa stepped away and began climbing back into the Underworld. Not letting go until the last second, until, with a final tender brush of his fingers over N’Jadaka’s, T’Challa was gone. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you like it and/or would like to know more about them in this setting.


End file.
